Slow network transfers on Win7

[donkey]

Trying to figure out why my network transfers are so freaking slow using Windows 7. I tried to transfer a 1GB file over the network and it reports around 54kbs transfer rate and 8 hours to move the file. Seriously on either of the 2 machines I could upload it and download to the internet in much less time, it takes less than an hour to download 1GB from the web ! My configuration is one PC (the one the file is on) connected directly using a 100M Ethernet card to a wireless SMC router, the other is connected via wireless. Both computers are running Windows 7 x64, one has Ultimate, the other has Home Premium. When I try to transfer files between them or even just watch a video over the network it moves along at a snails pace, before I start modifying a bunch of settings randomly I was wondering if anyone has figured this one out. I have Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Firewall active, there are no other firewalls or antivirus active on either machine.

[sinsi]

What speed is the wireless connecting at? Is that transfer rate kbits or kbytes?
If I copy a file from my wireless desktop to the other wireless desktop I get anywhere from 400KB/s to 600KB/s, that's with 802.11g (54Mbit).
Maybe your wireless is dropping down to 802.11b, that's 11Mbit, take out the overhead and possible half-duplex and you get around 4Mbit.

[donkey]

The wireless is at 300Mbps (bits/sec) the Ethernet is at 100Mbps (bits/sec) the transfer rate is 29.4 KB/s way below what it should be. Turn off the firewall on both machines and it jumps to a fabulous 37.9 KB/s. Finally turn off the antivirus and firewall and you get around 56.8 KB/s still too slow however, that cuts it from 17 hours per GB down to a blistering 5.5 hours per GB. Google shows thousands of hits for "windows 7 network transfers very slow" so I'll spend a bit of time reading through them and see what works.

[sinsi]

I have heard that 300Mb is a bit flaky, what happens if you force the wireless card to run at 54?

[donkey]

Actually, this page:

http://www.sysprobs.com/windows-7-network-slow

Solved the problem. By setting my Ethernet adapter to 100Mbs half duplex and using the netsh and turning off remote differential compression it sped up the transfer to 6.7 MB/s and required less than 3 minutes per GB. I have to figure out which setting made the most difference and whether it has any other effects but for now the transfers are very fast.

Edit: It seems that turning off auto-tuning and remote differential compression made very little difference, it was as sinsi suggested the duplex that was the issue here. Actually turning both tuning and compression back on bumped the speed by nearly 2 MB/s up to 7.9 MB/s.

Edit again: Its actually averaging 8.83 MB/s over a number of files, more than fast enough for my purposes.

[Twister]

Check your computer
Check the modem/router (bad settings or unauthorized users)
Maybe there is a lot of usage in your area or they are working on the lines?

[sinsi]

I found that doing what that page said didn't change much, except now (changing then reverting) I max out at 400, not 600 like before :( Maybe rebooting will fix it, but if I need to copy files the good old ethernet (1Gbps) is good, though not convenient (drag out the cable, connect, try not to trip).

Out of interest, what speeds do you get copying the other way?

[donkey]

Hi sinsi,

Same speed both ways, slightly faster discovery if the wireless requests the file as opposed to copying it to the wireless connection. Nothing was modified on the wireless end of the connection, only the main PC wih the ethernet connection was changed.

Hi Horton,

At nearly 71 Mbps (8.83 MB/s * 8bits) I am running near maximum for the ethernet card (100 Mbs). The router is clean, no unauthorized access and the settings are good, setting the network card on the ethernet connection to half-duplex has solved the problem for me at least, the transfer rate is very good and there is no apparent effect on any network or internet functionality.

This is definitely a good thing as I have nearly 100 GB of files to transfer, now I can just let it run while I'm sleeping and be sure it'll finish by morning.

[fearless]

Have you tried using an FTP program to transfer files? might be the SAMBA protocol is slowing down the transfer, whereas FTP might be faster. I have a QNAP 219P NAS and use FTP and SAMBA (normal windows copy/paste) to transfer files and usually find the FTP faster - WinSCP is faster still than FTP. So could be worth a try to test if there is any difference. Only other thing i can think of that might impact on the file copy and paste is anti-virus software.

[donkey]

Hi fearless,

Thanks for the advice however the problem was solved to my satisfaction with setting the network card to half-duplex, the transfers are now near the maximum for the hardware I have installed and I can't see tweaking the system or changing the protocol improving it much more.

Edgar

[fearless]

ok, happy days then :D

[Vortex]

Hi Edgar,

It's true that Windows 7 suffers from slow network transfer, I experienced it too. That remote differential compression feature seems to be responsible for this issue.

[hutch--]

I have been known to turn on my Win7 64 bit box occasionally but I have never had any data transfer speed problems with it, it has a gigabit ethernet built into the board and it connects to a gigabit hub which in turn connects to an ordinary 100 mbit router hub. The limit on my connection is about 1.5 meg/sec depending on the server and distance but it is also dictated by the limits of ADSL2+ here in OZ across a copper telephone line. I am within a couple of miles of the exchange so I am OK, hassled the telco here in OZ years ago in the dial up days to get a better telephone line and got a decent copper pair for the effort and it is now paying dividends.

Do you still remember the 28k connections (if you were lucky) over 10 years ago ?  :P

I remember downloading the original Win98 DDK in 1997 which took 23 hours then crashed. Lucky I knew the ISP back in those days so he downloaded it onto the server and I got it off the server in about an hour.

[dedndave]

shoooot
i remember 300 baud   :bg
then 1200 - then 2400
we felt like big shots when 14 kbd came out

[daydreamer]

shoooot
i remember 300 baud   :bg
then 1200 - then 2400
we felt like big shots when 14 kbd came out

but that was over 1000 years ago :P